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Coping With Stress

Optimum Health and Time in Nature Go Hand in Hand

by Pandora Peoples

Indigenous people have developed an intuitive relationship with the earth that has proved beneficial to humanity and has developed over many thousands of years of human evolution. They understand the intelligence of the earth, and respect the consciousness within the natural world. They see how gratitude helps crops grow and know how singing to plants makes them grow faster. They see how the deeper their connection to the natural world, the more they can influence the events in their lives. Using ritual and ceremony to elicit helps from spiritual influences combined with the power of intention they manifest outcomes for individuals and for their communities. Honoring the cycles of the year and the life cycles of the human life, helps people to feel a part of the divine scheme of life and that their lives are in perfect harmony and syncopation with all that surrounds them. Seasonal festivals and rites of passages are vestiges of age-old understanding of the Cycle of Life.

In the last hundred years in the Unites States, agriculture has transformed from being predominantly composed of family-farms to being almost exclusively commercial and corporate farming. With this advent of the industrialized farming culture, new generations have quickly forgotten the importance of connecting to the earth and looking to the natural world for comfort and understanding.

In my practice, I have seen many depressed and melancholy clients come away from the cloud hanging over their head into the sunshine. Spending more time in natural seems to be the single most important factor in bringing about an immediate and striking shift in mood, which fosters positive feelings of self-worth and renewed sense of life purpose. Whether they walk in the park, sit at the beach, plant in their garden, swim in a pond, bike a wooded path, or hike in the mountains, spending time outside is more than simply absorbing vitamin D.

Connecting to the Natural World is often superior medicine to pharmaceutical drugs. Many so-called chemical imbalances can be cured with some combination of sunlight, dietary changes, herbal supplements, dance, making music, or a yoga practice. Could doctors or the medical industry make money if this was widely practiced and understood? Anything that you can do for yourself at home or in natural isn't profitable for the big business that is the medical industry. Sunlight is free. Dance is free. Making music is free. You are free to move your body how you choose. When you take your health in to your own hands it is a very powerful and rewarding experience. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort for people to break through their inhibitions and fears of being present and moving in their own body. The uneasiness of self-consciousness and the awkwardness of self-discovery is a small price to pay for journeying on the path toward optimal health.

The natural world teaches us about regeneration. When we live in cities and spend most of our time surrounded by man-made structures, tools and machines, we are surrounded by things which weren’t pure creations of the Universal Intelligence. Theses objects do not vibrate at the same level of the natural world and they do not reflect back to us positive affirmations about life. In fact, cell phones, computers hum, lamps and other electrical devices, create audible and inaudible noise, which affects our brain waves and our nervous system, leading to stress, lowered immune response, and disorganized thought processes.

The natural world, teaches us about ourselves. Humans are animals, but we tend to forget it. We belong with our feet in the earth, our hands in the water, our hair in the wind, playing like dolphins and monkeys, and huddling together around campfires and the hearth. We belong to one another, as resources of our communities. It is our duty to ourselves to be diligent in striving to find our unique life purpose, and it is our duty to others to stick with our skills and talent to improve the lives of others. It is the duty of every person as neighbors, friends, and coworkers to help support others in finding that place in the community where they can contribute from the heart and offer their unique skills and talents.